Facing Fears

This week has been exhausting! Who knew swimming to the reef crest and back five times a day carrying three bags of coral rubble could take so much energy!? It's all been worth it though, because we are getting data!! :) Each herbivory assay seems have one obstacle or another.... One morning, I was out on the reef at 7am, starting to put out my algae segments. Thankfully, the wind was minimal, and so I felt relatively comfortable being out there by myself. I almost had everything out, and was planning on setting out a new transect for an afternoon run of the experiment while I waited to collect them again. I was at the reef crest when a surge came and knocked me into a coral bommie. I banged my knee pretty good, but it didn't hurt too bad, and didn't seem to be bleeding much, so I didn't worry. Between the reef crest and boat however, I had very close encounters with four black tips, which I thought was an unusually high number of sightings over such a short period. When I got back to the boat, I realized that my knee was actually bleeding quite a lot. I'm pretty sure none of them would attack, but to avoid attracting any more than I already had, I decided to stay out of the water until it scabbed over before collecting.

The next day, instead of doing a run on the back reef, we decided to check out the layout of the forereef, so that I could decide on how many set-ups I would need, how far apart to put them, and how long to leave them out. Normally, the forereef requires diving, since it is about 30-50 feet deep. However, for some reason we were unsure if I was cleared to dive yet, and so it was decided that two people would dive, and I would snorkel and observe from the surface. Can you say shark bait?? Basically we're talking the open ocean, and me floating/flailing vulnerably at the surface. I was terrified, but told myself that I had better suck it up because I didn't have a choice. If there were any giant barracudas, lemon sharks, or tiger sharks around, I didn't see them. I forced myself not to look around, and only to focus on the divers below. I made sure to stay directly above the diver making the largest bubbles, in the ridiculous hopes that being surrounded by a cluster of bubbles would somehow make me look larger and scarier. Sometimes I could see myself in the large bubbles, and was afraid that in the next bubble, I would not be alone in the reflection. Anyway, it was the longest half hour of my life, but I survived!
The past couple of days have been really windy, making boating (particularly for a beginner) a bit difficult. Yesterday, I tried to go out at 7am again, somehow managed to anchor before getting blown onto shallow coral bommies, and sat for about 20 minutes contemplating whether or not it was a good idea to be out there by myself in such conditions. I went back and forth telling myself to stop being such a baby, but the uncomfortable feeling in my gut eventually overpowered my stubborn will not to give up, and I went back defeated. However, it was not to be an unproductive day, as one of the grad students graciously volunteered to come out with me. We did two full runs! This morning I watched some corals for spawning, but nothing yet. We'll see how it goes over the next few days.